In Death, Nixon Still Provocative Most Either Loved Him Or Hated Him

In life, Richard M. Nixon was loved or hated with a special ardor by those who knew him best and dealt directly with him on political matters and matters of state.

His death has not cooled that ardor.

His admirers and defenders stand as steadfast with him in death as in life, glossing over Watergate, the most prominent entry on his career ledger. They focus, instead, on the second most prominent entry, his handling of foreign affairs, especially the diplomatic opening to China.

Nixon's critics and detractors remain steadfast, too. Their language is respectful in this hour of trial for the Nixon family, but their message is as disapprovingly blunt and as censorious as ever.

Typically, for one Nixon defender, former Secretary of State William Rogers, Nixon departed as "a great world leader."

"His accomplishments," said Rogers, now a New York lawyer, "were overshadowed by another event that was deemed more newsworthy at the time. But I think history will overcome that. In fact, I don't know of any other mortal who went through what Richard Nixon went through and by the end of his life had recovered as much as he had. He never gave in."

No such recovery occurred in the view of Alger Hiss, the former State Department official who was a target of one of Nixon's intense searches for Communist subversives hidden in American government.

"He left many deeds uncorrected and unatoned for," Hiss, now retired, said in a brief statement issued from his home in New York.

"I naturally feel sympathy for the members of Mr. Nixon's family," Hiss added.

Although down through the years the simple mention of Nixon's name was usually enough to elicit a pointed comment and judgment from those who knew him best, a few prominent figures from the Nixon years chose to remain silent upon the occasion of his death. And a few others acknowledged his passing with notable curtness.

One was Spiro Agnew, never at a loss for words while serving as Nixon's vice president and oratorical point man, until he was driven from office by an influence-peddling scandal that preceded the Watergate scandals.

"I have no comment," Agnew said, speaking by telephone from his home in Palm Springs, Calif.

He would not elaborate, but a White House official in the Nixon-Agnew days said that Agnew was bitter because he felt that the Justice Department in the Nixon administration had been unduly severe with him and that he had been treated too harshly.

Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor in the Watergate case whom Nixon had dismissed, was only slightly more forthcoming.

"I don't think the occasion of his death merits getting back into any of that," he said from his office at Harvard University, where he is now a professor of law.

Former Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, one of the most revered elders of the Republican Party, was equally succinct, calling for prayers for Nixon in a two-sentence statement and then adding, "He is, without a doubt, the most knowledgeable president we've had in foreign policy."

Likewise, former Chief Justice Warren Burger, a Nixon appointee who played a major role in swinging the Court to the right, opined in a two-sentence statement that Nixon should be remembered for achievements in foreign policy and for "leading the opposition to Communism when Communism had achieved some popularity in this country."

Elliot Richardson, the attorney general who resigned rather than dismiss Cox at Nixon's behest, reflected at length on his old boss, finding both good and bad but leaving no doubt that Watergate still rankled.

Richardson saw Nixon as "a figure not unlike the flawed hero of a Greek tragedy," a man who "had it within his grasp to be a great president" and who, in fact, achieved great domestic and foreign victories. Then, Richardson added, the "flaw" came into play and Watergate resulted.

"Richard Nixon's great weakness," Richardson said, "was the approach to life that came out of his battle to achieve station, influence, power -- all the things he felt he had not been accorded as a youth. He had an insecurity -- an insecurity that eventually propelled him to the presidency via his aggression, suspicion, vindictiveness, retaliation and so forth. He viewed every opponent as an enemy and he never understood when he had won."

Richardson said that Nixon's "considerable accomplishments" in foreign and domestic affairs should never be denigrated.

"I certainly never do," he added. "But I have never been able to feel the same way about him since I resigned. For a time I actually had bad dreams about ever seeing him again. I never did, except once, years later at some official function or the like. We exchanged pleasantries for a moment and then I tried to tell him that for all our differences I had never said bad things about his genuine accomplishments. He said he didn't care what I ever said about him."

George McGovern, the South Dakota senator soundly defeated by Nixon in the 1972 presidential election, also saw Nixon as a man with a fatal flaw.